


Statues of Clay

by diaphanous87



Series: The Archer [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Haven (Dragon Age), Head Injury, In Your Heart Shall Burn, Other, Skipped monologue because we've all heard it a billion times, muffled hearing because of head injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 02:30:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11637075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diaphanous87/pseuds/diaphanous87
Summary: In which Brighid wishes she wasn't right. Gut feelings and fire from the sky. Haven is doomed...End Of Book One





	Statues of Clay

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Dragon Age.

** Statues of Clay **

_“A distant enemy is always preferable to one at the gate.” -Emil Cioran_

\---

**Shadows of Haven**

It’s been almost three days since the closing of the Breach. Days of partying around her and Brighid still had an uneasy feeling in her gut. She certainly didn’t participate after her first and only ale. Instead she had been hiding among the trees behind the Chantry close to Adan’s cabin. She had even left her yarn basket in Sera’s loft in the tavern. There was no comfort or calm to be had for her.

Brighid only stared up at the scar in the sky through the branches of her hideaway. Her hands were clasped tightly in front her, pressed against her belly. Her bow, unstrung, was strapped to her quiver. Every day she dressed in her adventuring clothes: a hip length, long sleeved green gambeson with light serpentstone chest armor, thankfully without hammered on tits, thick black leggings tucked into ram leather knee high boots, and ram leather bracers on both forearms. A pair of small daggers were tucked into said boots. She was dressed for battle amongst the drunken joy permeating the village.

Too easy was the only thing in her mind. Not that she wanted the Herald to struggle. He didn’t deserve that. But something felt wrong, like the very air was on tenterhooks and waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it seemed like she was the only one who truly felt it. And her paranoia compelled her to keep her quiver full and strapped to her back and her bow ready to be strung at a moment’s notice. The Iron Bull was the only one to see her nervousness when she paced outside the gates. Instead his single eye gazed at her with understanding.

“You’re pretty jumpy,” he had said to her last night. “Something you want to tell me?”

“A bad feeling,” she had answered, her fingers wrapped tightly around the grip of her bow as she held it in her hand yesterday. “It seems like… there should be something else.” She remembered hopping from foot to foot beneath his probing gaze. “I’m scared.” The admittance had been hard but freeing.

“Well, keep your quiver on and your bow ready like it is now,” the Iron Bull replied then. He had looked then to the night sky. “Maybe there is something else. I’ll look into it.”

And it was now mid afternoon of the third day since the Breach was closed. She hadn’t seen Alex who had been knocked out by the effort. Though apparently he had woken up this morning if the shouts echoing out after breakfast were to be believed.

“Fuck,” Brighid huffed out. Her long ears were flexed back, tight against her skull. She scurried out from beneath the safety of snowy boughs of her hiding spot. She made a beeline for the gates and the area where the Chargers and the Iron Bull were staying. The hunter pretended that she didn’t hear Varric call out to her in the hubbub and she slipped out among the partying people.

“Was wondering if you would show up today,” the Iron Bull said as he shoved Krem toward the others of their company. “Walk with me.”

Brighid trotted to keep up. “Anything?” She asked when they approached the dock past the training dummies.

“Not much but your gut feeling might be right.” The massive Qunari crossed his arms and looked down at her. “Red’s pulled back her agents, hoping for more info. Mine are muttering about something coming but not what or when.” Suspicion blazed in his eye. “Do you know something?” His tone was deeper, darker.

She glared at him. “I wish,” she snapped. “Then I’d know what to prepare for instead of faffing around like ants were in my pants.” Her ears were still back and her lips formed a snarl of frustration. “I’ve already vomited last night freaking out. I want this done and the feeling go away. I want to go home but everything feels like it’s half done and I don’t know why!” She threw her hands in the air and tugged at the little curls that escaped today’s braid at her temples. Her stomach gurgled in protest and she started hyperventilating. Her vision went a little gray around the edges. Panic made her pupils contract into tiny pinpoints and she stared helplessly at him. Oh… a panic attack… she hadn’t had one of these in awhile.

“Shit,” the Iron Bull muttered. He knelt down and wrapped a calming hand around her nape. They were now eye to eye. He pulled her forward so that their foreheads were touching. “Breathe with me,” he instructed. He began a breathing exercise and she followed suite. She concentrated on the rumble of his voice, breathing in time with him. She wound her fingers around his pauldron strap across his broad chest. He smelled like musk, snow, and foreign spices. “That’s it, Ashaad-bas. Nice and slow and deep.”

“Bu… Bull?” Her wavering voice was heart wrenching. She sounded so young and tired. He had pushed too hard on a person who was already wound too tight, an empty bowstring drawn back too far.

“Easy there, I got you,” the Iron Bull said softly.

“I need to barf,” Brighid announced. She was let go and she fell to her knees to lean over the end of the dock. Her sick made a splash on the icy lake below.

“Shit.”

\---

Stitches pressed a sturdy hand against her forehead. Brighid was sitting by his tent so that he could examine her. The Chargers politely ignored the pair of them though Krem shot an occasional glare at Bull.

“You’re bit warm,” Stitches said, “but not quite a fever. What happened?” He tilted her head up to exam her eyes. He was a solid, no nonsense presence that soothed her.

“Panic attack,” Brighid answered. “I get going like that every once in a while. Though usually not until after the fact of what ever happened to trigger it.” Her smile was weak and rueful. “Haven’t had one since Healer Rina died at the Crossroads. I hid somewhere and had a meltdown away from prying eyes.”

“Well, you just sit here with us until you feel better,” the mercenary healer said. He accepted a tin cup from Dalish. “Here, some tea to calm your nerves.”

“Thank you,” Brighid whispered, inhaling the scent. She recognized the embrium mixed in and took a little sip. She slowly exhaled. “It’s good.”

“Of course it is!” Dalish shouted with a laugh. “Old Dalish recipe, you know.”

“Hmph, you are full of hot air,” Skinner announced which started a shoving match between the two she-elves.

Brighid felt her shoulders relax and a small smile quirked up the ends of her lips. Maybe it was nothing, her gut feeling…

\---

The clanging ring of the warning bell above the gate echoed throughout the village, cutting through the celebratory haze. Screams joined the ringing as people scrambled. Ale was spilled. Some had enough sense to head straight for the Chantry while others huddled into various cabins.

Brighid was running, weaving in and out of the crowd. With nary a thought to it, she strung her bow. The snowy mud beneath her boots was easily ignored. She shoved away any who ran into her, making sure that the person who did so did not fall to trampling feet. Ahead of her, Alex, Cassandra, and the Advisors were talking rapidly to each other as more people streamed through the gates into the village proper. Solas was staring at the gates with a severe frown on his face. His fingers were white knuckled, wrapped around his staff grip. But no time to stare at the visibly upset mage. Instead,she slid to a halt besides Sister Nightingale. The redheaded Orlesian looked at her, thankfully her face clear of suspicion but still clouded with worry.

“Sister Leliana!” Brighid gasped. The gates slammed closed. “Orders?”

Varric was already preparing his crossbow as he jogged over the join them. Blackwall, Sera, and Dorian were running toward them as well, having obviously sobered up and dressed for fighting. The Iron Bull was giving orders to his Chargers to usher people to the Chantry. He nodded at Brighid, acknowledging that her bad feeling had been right. Madame Vivienne was guiding a group of mage children and apprentices with Enchanter Trevelyan to the Chantry. The mages who were able to fight stood mixed with the templars who were armored up and awaiting orders alongside Inquisition soldiers.

But Brighid never got her answer. Instead, something started banging at the gates.

“I can’t come in if you don’t open!” An anxious, boyish voice called out.

\---

**Fire From The Sky**

_“Don’t tell me he wants to conquer the world? Can’t he come up with something more original?” -Lina Inverse, Slayers_

\---

Her ears were ringing. The only she could hear clearly was her own labored breathing. She was belly down. Her free hand that wasn’t trapped beneath her body clawed at the snowy ground, her fingers digging into the soil and winter grass. She coughed, noting the pain radiating from her ribs. And then the rest of her senses rushed back into her attention. Screams and the crackling of fire assaulted her hearing. The scent of smoke and blood and fire oil from trebuchet ammunition permeated her nose. She could taste her own blood filling her mouth. Her eyes focused on the red pots of fire oil and the unconscious forms of Adan and Minaeve. Fuck, she had been evacuating them from where they had been preparing the fire oil to send to the trebuchets.

Get up.

Brighid used her free hand to push herself up to free her other arm. She panted in exertion as she levered herself into a kneeling position. There was still an underlying ringing sound in her ears but she ignored it. She ignored the heat of the fire that was approaching fast. She had no time to panic. She had to grab Adan and Minaeve before the fire consumed them and the fire oil.

Get up.

She staggered to her feet. The elf grabbed Adan by the back of his tunic first and dragged him away from the pots to the space between his cabin and Dorian’s with the pathway that led to the Chantry. And before the fire got to the fire oil, she had slung Minaeve over her shoulder and stumbled away. She dumped the other woman onto the ground by Adan which brought her back to the waking world. Brighid fell to her knees, panting. But no time for rest. Instead, two women then slung the alchemist’s arms onto their shoulders and they both staggered to the Chantry. Adan was taken by the healers, Minaeve at their heels. Brighid shuffled further into the shadows of the Chantry. An Inquisition soldier took one look at her and reached out.

“McCullough,” Captain Rylen said, a steady hand gripping her shoulder to keep her upright. “Ach, lass, here now. Sit. You did well.”

“The Herald?” She wheezed. Rylen didn’t answer her. Instead he pointed to where Alex Trevelyan stood near the doors, arguing with Rutherford. “Good. He’s here. He’s safe. Thank you, Captain.” His reply was lackluster and barely registered to her hearing. She nodded at him and walked away.

No time for sitting yet.

Brighid scooped up an abandoned bow to replace her shattered one that had likely been burned to ashes. She was given arrows by a scout with a heavily bandaged leg that obviously couldn’t be walked on. So now her quiver was mostly full again. Brighid stood with Sera and Blackwall, joining the Herald’s inner circle.

She hated the plan that was born.

\---

Being thrown around by fire and explosions was growing old fast. Her head felt like a triangle chime that had been hit too hard, ringing. So many head injuries and somehow Brighid was still conscious. Perhaps it was because there was work to be done still and so her stubbornness kept her upright. Or it was the painful training that she had once endured as a child to never stay laying down. And so she staggered to her feet and looked up at the blighted dragon that had been wreaking havoc.

“Wow, fuck you too…” Brighid groused, leaning against the last trebuchet. Her bow had been shattered again and her quiver slid off of her back in pieces. “Fuck everything.” Alex was standing between the trebuchet and the dragon.

“Enough!” A tall creature so ugly and terrifying that he would have made Nazgul cry stomped into view. Obscenely tall and stretched like taffy but skeletal like a spectre of death, this being was wrong. There was something so wrong about it. From the imbedded red lyrium in its stretched face down to its weird ass shoes, its presence was as nauseating as its monologue.

The archer choked back a cry as the creature cast something directed at the Herald’s. mark. More talking, but to her ears it was muffled as it competed with the constant ringing that persisted in her ears. And when it hoisted Alex up with its spidery hands she felt hate for this thing burn bright in her heart.

Brighid clawed and staggered over to where Alex had been thrown by the trebuchet lever. He looked at her in despair but together they faced the monster. Alex shakily aimed a sword at it. Brighid’s hearing cleared up enough to hear the creature say that it would start again, that it would give Thedas the nation and god it deserved. Wow.

“You’re full of shit,” she snarled at it. She refused to waver beneath its hateful gaze. She bowed to no one unless she chose.

“You talk a lot,” Alex Trevelyan sneered. “But you are a fool. Enjoy your victory!” He whirled around Brighid to kick the lever to launch the trebuchet payload. The taller rogue wrapped an arm around her waist when the thing and its dragon turned to watch the payload hit the mountainside. “Time to go,” he shouted. He hauled her against his side and they jumped into the fissure that opened up ahead into the tunnels beneath. The dragon flew away with its wrathful master. “Hold on!” Alex wrapped his other arm around her, his hand on the back of her head. Brighid clutched desperately at his chainmail and leather and ducked her head as his hand directed. He curled around her and they tumbled into the darkness below.

The mountain fell onto Haven.

\---

** END OF PART FIVE **

** END OF BOOK ONE **

Brighid’s [gambeson](http://www.stahlgilde.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59&product_id=745) (but in forest green)  
  
Brighid’s [chest armor](http://www.stahlgilde.com/larp-armor/larp-cuirass-breastplate?product_id=765)  
  
Brighid’s [leather bracers](http://www.stahlgilde.com/leather-goods/leather-cuffs?product_id=868) (replace the slavic sun wheel with the Inquisition heraldry)

 


End file.
